[Child of the 7th Age]

I don't know why Tolkien did what he did, but I am glad he did it. I do know that, if Sam and Frodo had died, the book would have left me with a very different feeling. When I turn the last page of Tolkien's final chapter, I am filled with sadness and regret, yet a glimmer of hope remains. I've always felt that these few pages were special in showing the reader both how much had been gained and how much lost. Of all Tolkien's writings, these passages remain the most poignant and magical to me.

Not only would the death of Sam and Frodo been deeply depressing, but it would have removed much of that meaning. The tragedy at the end of the Lord of the Rings was not the death of any one or two individuals, but something much wider than that. It is the fact that an entire world was changing, and changing in such a way that Tolkien's depiction of its passing still brings an ache to my heart. I don't quite know how to say this, but are there others who sometimes wish they lived in a time or place where Elves or Hobbits were more than a figment of our imaginations? I've always had the feeling that there is something out there, something just beyond my fingertips. I catch a tiny glimpse, but then it whisks away.

The tragedy remains that Man lives in a universe where so much of the magic has departed. Like it or not, we are heirs of the Fourth Age. Even on those rare occasions when the magic is there, we simply fail to see it. Maybe the Elves faded not because of any change they went through but because of our own inability to understand and appreciate those things that can't be expressed in strictly physical terms. The ending of the Lord of the Rings makes me grieve for the passing of myth and magic in a way that the simple killing of Sam and Frodo would never have done. The death of these two beloved characters would have been a loss, but a much smaller one than the passing of a whole world, which is the final image that Tolkien chose to leave with his reader.

Finally, death is an important piece of Man's legacy; it is actually part and parcel of the new age. In the period following the destruction of the Ring, despite renewed prosperity and hope, there are to be no more immortal Elves. Man's lifespan will continue to shrink, and hobbits will diminish in size. To have abruptly killed Sam and Frodo off at Mount Doom would have made these two just another part of "Man's World", meeting their end like all those who died on the battlefield. But Frodo especially wasn't part of the new age. As ringbearers, Sam and Frodo were an important piece of the world that was passing and needed to leave like the Elves and the Ents....gently fading rather than being violently wrenched away.

Maybe Tolkien was too soft hearted, maybe he wanted to undo the massive bloodshed and horror of the First World War, and this seemed like a good way to rewrite things and bring his characters to a gentler end. Yet I also can't help but feel that he is telling us something about ourselves, the fact that we live in a world where there will be a few small victories but many great defeats stretching as far as the eye can see...a world where change and sadness and hope are intermingled. No one can escape this cycle, not even the reader sitting comfortably in a chair. This kind of heartwrenching loss and portrayal of change transcends the death of any one character. It brings us into the circle. At the end we are not only grieving for Sam and Frodo, and all the departing Elves. We are also grieving for ourselves.